


Truth Be Told I've Done This All Before

by blanchtt



Series: 500X LEDA [19]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 22:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11240547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: She’s surprised the issue has never been discussed before. She’d been on other dates where it’d become the elephant in the room, and after a lovely meal and warm goodbyes the other woman had never texted back. Delphine gets it. Their biological clock is ticking. Hers, though, is not.





	Truth Be Told I've Done This All Before

**Author's Note:**

> A five headcanons request about Delphine and motherhood.

 

 

 

 

 

i.

  

She’s surprised the issue has never been discussed before. She’d been on other dates where it’d become the elephant in the room, and after a lovely meal and warm goodbyes the other woman had never texted back. Delphine gets it. Their biological clock is ticking. Hers, though, is not.

 

Shay says it so casually and out of nowhere that it blindsides her.

 

She’s sitting on the couch, a killer shift leaving her lying there sipping at wine and barely reading the book she’s got laying face-up on her lap, while Shay soaks in the tub. ( _Are all bathtubs in the living room in Canada_ , she'd asked when she'd first seen it, and Shay had kissed her silly).

 

“Did I ever ask if you wanted kids?”

 

Delphine feels her heart skip a beat and sucks in a breath, knows this might be where their relationship which has been going so marvelously well may take a definitive turn for better or worse. She sits up, propped on an elbow, and looks over at the tub – Shay peers at her, expression neutral, before turning her face away, reaching and cupping a handful of water to pour over herself.

 

“No,” Delphine admits, and rips the Band-Aid off neatly. There are subtler ways to do it, _mais tant pis_. “Truthfully, I have been happy to stay an aunt.”

 

At that, Shay smiles. “You like your kids to be an ocean away. Got it,” she teases, sinking further into the water to rinse her hair, and with the sound of water splashing quietly against porcelain the issue seems to have passed smoothly.

 

Delphine swallows, finds her words, and to be sure, asks, “And you?”

 

A laugh from Shay, light. “Yeah, being an aunt to four nephews is enough for me, too,” she says, sitting up, hair slicked back, a dark blonde, and Delphine reaches for her book, folds a corner over to save her page and sets it aside.

 

“You tipsy enough to join me yet?” Shay asks, observant, and Delphine nods, slips off the couch and goes to her.

 

“You’re like a siren,” Delphine says, and she might have had a little too much because Shay smiles adorably and she wants nothing more than to lean down and kiss her.

 

“Alright. Apropos of nothing. If you’re drunk enough to drown, we should move this,” Shay warns, and Delphine reaches for the hem of her blouse, drags it over herself and lets it drop to the floor.

 

 _“Non._ Just tipsy enough to appreciate it.”

 

 

 

 

ii.

 

“Don’t get attached,” Cosima warns.

 

“Don’t get attached,” Delphine repeats.

 

It’s quite hard not to, but she’d never tell anyone that. Being a woman in science is hard enough without falling prey to the most pathetic of stereotypes.

 

She handles the mice with care, with gratitude, and continues her work.

 

 

-

 

 

“Heard your line isn’t doing too well,” Scott says, oblivious smile plastered on his face, and Cosima rolls her eyes, kicks her foot out, and spins around in her chair away from him.

 

Delphine bites her bottom lip to hide a smile that threatens to expose itself as Cosima focuses on her, ignores Scott, and asks her what she’s doing after work on Friday.

 

 

-

 

 

Scott was not trash-talking them (a phrase Cosima has taught her) and their line isn’t doing well. They’ll discontinue and try again. She knows what that means. It makes feeding them on Tuesday morning much harder than before. 

 

“I had a pet snake as a kid so, like, I’m used to it,” Cosima says later, a shoulder shrugging before she motions to the locker where the barbiturates are kept. “It gets easier.”

 

 

-

 

 

It does get easier, but she wishes it hadn’t.

 

 

 

 

iii.

 

It is both natural and dizzying to be back home. Home, in this case, being Clémence’s house in Toulouse for six weeks, squeezed into their spare bedroom and woken up each morning by Valerie and Gabrielle eager to see Tatie Delphine (although they are much more shy around Cosima, to Delphine’s amumsement).

 

Even though it’s a Saturday and there are places she wants to show Cosima, she offers to babysit out of gratitude and her sister agrees all too quickly. As soon as she and her husband are out the door, it’s astounding how quickly things get messy.

 

“ _– and then today on the playground I asked Elise to push me but she wasn’t pushing hard enough so I didn’t get very high up –_ ”

 

“Holy shit,” Cosima exclaims loudly, and Delphine would clap her hands over Gabrielle’s ears if she weren’t currently trying to feed Olivier, her niece mid-story about what happened at school today. It takes her a moment to realize Cosima’s said it in English, and she relaxes, nudges the spoon at Olivier just as he turns his head away. “Can you understand that?”

 

“ _– so I ended up falling off the swing and, and - Tatie Delphine! Are you listening to me?”_

 

"Oui, ma puce, je t’écoute,” Delphine says, and in another breath answers Cosima. “Yes, but barely,” Delphine admits with a short laugh, looking over at the TV where Cosima’s playing some sort of videogame with Valerie. Gabrielle rattles along, high voice stumbling over words in her young rush to speak, and to Cosima it must sound like the buzz of a little hummingbird.

 

“Baby-talk is baby-talk,” Delphine reasons, and nudges the spoon at Olivier’s lip, trying to get him to take a bite. He giggles, refuses, slaps the spoon quicker than Delphine can stop him, and she feels warm, mushy food splatter against her cheek.

"Ugh," she groans, and reaches up to wipe the baby food off her face with a hand. But she’s surprised to find Cosima suddenly next to her, holding out a hand towel and grinning.

 

 _“Why don’t you play Valerie and I’ll watch?”_  Cosima asks Gabrielle in decent French, steering her away from Delphine, and Gabrielle shrieks, runs off to join her sister, and Delphine gives her a grateful smile as Cosima turns and follows her.

 

With the baby _finally_ fed and changed and put to bed, it’s easy to flop onto the couch, tilt her head down onto Cosima’s shoulder, and close her eyes despite the explosions happening onscreen, Valerie and Gabrielle chattering about some pink thing named Kirby. It has been a long day.

 

“How long ‘till they have to go to bed?” Cosima asks in English, hopeful, lips brushing against her temple in a light kiss, and Delphine curls closer against her.

 

“Soon!”

 

 

 

 

iv.

 

There is a one-night stand, a stupid decision, and worry in the morning.

 

She stops at the pharmacy, buys the pill, pops it out of the plastic wrapping not three steps out of the building, swallows it dry, and breathes a sigh of relief.

 

 

 

  

v.

 

“It’s no use brushing curly hair,” Sarah says with conviction, and Delphine laughs, thinks about the time she’d tried to run a hand through Sarah’s hair soothingly and been met with more than a few knots and snarls.

 

“Maybe not your hair,” Delphine agrees – _your wild hair that I love_ – and Kira laughs, which gets a fake scowl out of her mother. Delphine can tell Sarah’s joking because her body language is still loose and rangy as she makes her way around the apartment with Kira’s backpack in hand, gathering things they’d scattered the night before and putting them one by one in the backpack.

 

“Yeah, well. When you get that brush stuck in your hair, don’t come cryin’ to me,” Sarah says, and with one final glance at the apartment zips up the backpack, leaves it by the door, and heads to the kitchen to prepare Kira’s lunch. “Better hurry, Kira, or your _maman_ is gonna be late for work, yeah?”

 

And so Kira bounces on Delphine’s lap, tugging at her sleeve, and Delphine picks her up, sets her on a hip as she walks over to the bathroom.

 

She sets Kira down in front of the sink on the little pink plastic footstool, lets Kira clutch at the porcelain edge as she stares up at the mirror she’s just barely tall enough to see herself in now. “What would you like today?” Delphine asks, and Kira’s face scrunches up as she thinks, nose wrinkling, before deciding.

 

“A French braid!” Kira says enthusiastically, and Dephine nods, does pick up a brush and teases out soft, sleep-mussed curls before starting to braid.

 

Sarah glances at it appreciatively, later, and presses a kiss to her cheek before they head out the door, Kira holding both their hands as they make their way to school.

 

 

 

 


End file.
